Archive for May, 2009

I haven’t written in my blog in a long time even though I always have so much on my mind. I’ve been using Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?” to post comments about WHAT IS on my mind. I’ve thought about writing my thoughts here but just haven’t. And so, without further delay…”What’s on Paul’s mind?”

Sorcery…from the French word “Sorcier”, or “sort”, translated as “fate”. How much influence do we have in our fate? If we do create our lives with our thoughts, then we do influence our fate. If our life is preordained then we can do nothing to influence fate. But that is the conundrum. We have thoughts all the time, we make decisions every second of every day, we influence our destiny depending on what decisions we make. We talk about certain events that happen in our lives, or people that we meet, as synchronous events, or coincidences, if we perceive them to be positive (or even negative) experiences. If something bad (or even good) happens then we often associate that event as fate. Stay with me here, I’m quite sure I’ll have a point to make in the end.

The word “sorcery” came about to be “a means to control fate”. If our thoughts create our lives, then we are all “sorcerers”. No? Isn’t sorcery something “bad”? We create “monsters” with sorcery. We create relationships, art, music, things, and our bodies with our thoughts. Think about that for a second or maybe a minute. We create our bodies because we decide what we eat and drink, how much sleep we are going to try and have, how much exercise we will do. If we are diagnosed with fibromyalgia, or cancer, or any other disease then we say that that’s fate. We create our relationships with our minds. Or do we? Two people meet and “chemistry”, common interests or bonds, visual appeal, or who knows what, allows this meeting to turn into a lifelong friendship, a brief romantic encounter, a business partnership or any other type of relationship. Is this fate? Is this our thoughts creating our lives? What if it’s a combination of both?

Someone comes into my life and for whatever reason we become friends. It’s the most unlikely friendship…age difference, social network, interests, ambitions (or faith in our abilities to make our dreams come true). We use our thoughts to create a friendship because we decide what topics we will talk about, what topics we will NOT talk about, which events we will go to together, how we dress because we are with that person at that event, …and then the friendship fizzles out. Huh! What happened? Did fate bring us together for a reason, but we are using our thoughts to destroy what is destiny? Our mind is constantly interpreting what is happening in our lives. We all have a past that influences our thought patterns. Society, our parents, our friends, past relationships, all influence how we interpret the data coming into our brain from events happening in the present. That influences how we will react. We often end up making something into something that it’s not. We create our “monsters”.

These two people, me and the person that came into my life met because of fate. Or maybe we just met because we were at the same place at the same time and must have some common interest or we wouldn’t have been at that place at that time. It could have stopped there…like two strangers meeting at a bus stop, never to be seen together again. But no, a conscious decision (thought) by one of the individuals, a random comment on Facebook, and the “chance” meeting turns into more interaction. Why? Each individual knows in their mind why they are doing it but they don’t know why the other person is. They never really do. You can know someone all your life and never know what causes them to do certain things. We all do certain things in life and not know why we did it. Blame it on the “monsters” in our life! Or maybe we should blame fate. Maybe it’s fate that makes us do those things in life that we wouldn’t “think” of doing.

I see this other person, who is now in my life, doing certain things and interpret them as signs. It’s an awareness thing. We are aware of the things that we focus our attention on. We can’t focus on everything that happens. We then use our past to interpret those signs. Bad move! Why would something that happened in the past with someone else, or even with this same person, mean the same thing? It’s easy to see that if it was someone else that those signs could mean something else, though we still use them as a criteria in interpreting the signs in the present, but what if it is the same person doing the same thing? Is that person in the same emotional state as the last time they did that same thing? Every second of every day we are evolving (some in the wrong direction we could say), but we are never the same person we were 30 seconds ago because our brain is always receiving new information.

We also see things happening in this other person’s life and interpret them as signs that they should be seeing. Maybe they aren’t as aware about their signs yet that are telling them which way to go. You can’t make them see those signs. Or maybe you’re just seeing what you think their signs are because you want to create something that is not. Another “monster”.

This “new” relationship (i.e. friendship) fizzled out because both individuals have created something that is not there. I haven’t the faintest idea what the other person has created, but I can see looking back in hindsight what I created. Only I can decide (i.e. create new thoughts and events) to let that relationship continue to fizzle out or make it into what it should be. But I can’t do that, the other person has created something in their minds that I can’t change. All I can do is let fate happen. What happens next will be Serendipity. That is, if it’s meant to be!

I believe in fate and I also believe that we create our lives. This person came into my life because I had a lesson to learn. Fate intervened. I also created a monster in this relationship. I’ve created my life and made it my passion to help people. I do whatever I can to help people. I give people what they need. That can be helping a theatre company build a stage set. It can be videotaping a performance and ensuring the participants, parents and others in this organization get copies of the performance. It can be providing guidance to a friend in her business endeavours. It can be just living my life the way I want to live it and inspiring people. The monster I created was thinking that I could help this one person who might not want or realize that they need help. This one person who cares too much, who puts others needs before her own, and that I see has so much potential. A person who’s emotions I could feel. Who’s hurts I felt.

Why was it so? It was so because I needed to write this. I have a movie script and a second book to write. I need to experience what I will be writing and demonstrating in the movie. I needed to feel her emotions and her pain so that I would get the right message. You cannot truly help someone without first putting yourself in their shoes. This individual inspires me. She is my muse. I NEED her in my life, but I can’t make her be in my life. That is her decision. Just like it’s her decision to be all that she can be. To be who she really is. I can’t make her see who she really is. I can’t make her be aware of her signs. To follow her signs. It’s like a smoker who rationalizes their addiction, or an alcoholic or gambler who believes they aren’t hurting anyone but themselves. At some point in time we all NEED to ask for help. Fate helps us along in life by putting the right people and events in our lives when we need them. We also have the ability to create our lives with the decisions we make about what we will do, but never what the other person will do. Only we can decide which “angel” we let into our life or which “monster” we will create. We are all sorcerers! Every sorcerer was once an apprentice. We’ve learned what we’ve learned throughout our lives for a reason. Sometimes by ourselves (experience-making mistakes), sometimes by asking for some help. We’re the only ones who can decide whether we want to take the longer route by learning by our mistakes or maybe using the shortcut and using the angel that fate has provided.

I’ve had a bad week, this past week. My fibromyalgia symptoms came back. I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster lately because I’ve been caring “too much” for this one individual. My book sales are not going as expected and income is not coming in. I found out that I have a ¼ million $ “stuck” in investments and those funds won’t help me get through this start-up phase of my business. My house hasn’t sold yet and I want to start living like a gypsy in a month so that I can write my second book and movie script. I’ve watched too much TV and movies and done everything but what I thought I needed to do. Slept too much, and so on and on….

But in reality I did do what I had to do this week. I could classify this as a wasted week, instead of as a productive week if I had done my corporate taxes (which is high on my to-do list). I had a lesson to learn this week. I can thank James for the 2 hour Facebook chat plus the monsters analogy, I can thank the Pastor at WKC for the blog entry about sorcery and fate, I can thank Tanya for the smoker rationalization, I can thank the writers of the TV show Criminal Minds for helping me realize that there are “monsters” out there and that we cannot help everyone. I can thank the writers of the movie “Stranger than Fiction” for confirming that this is the life that I am living. My life is what I write about. I’ve already written the ending. That’s what dreams are all about. Knowing how our story should end if we aren’t afraid to be sorcerers. All we need to do is put all our faith in fate. Jesus knew that!

A special thanks to my muse. I once told you you were an angel. It’s your decision whether you came into my life for a reason (this blog entry), a season (accept my job offer), or a lifetime (???). That’s the best thing about being able to create our lives and having fate help us along, we never know what’s around the corner. It makes life interesting. But when we have faith in fate, and ourselves, we know our dreams will come true!